Miss Bluebird and Miss Shewbird were equally different and equally memorable bus drivers. We kids loved miss Bluebird and we despised Miss Shewbird.
One must understand the politics involved in riding the school bus to understand the quality of the bus driver. The only common currency among the respective passengers is candy. Children are, I admit, practicing Communists. Candy is brought, hidden, and distributed in commensurate portions. It is our way of sticking it to the man. Everything else, of course, is a matter of hierarchy. The class system provides the caste system. Seniors sit in the back, then the juniors, followed by the sophomores, and so on and so forth. Only occasionally were we 7th graders permitted to attend the more sophisticated high-school conversation. And this only occurred at the direct invitation of John Heaton, the eldest and coolest of the seniors. He was a social shepherd among eager sheep. We trusted our vehicular happiness to his whims and, as I am soon to articulate, his confectionery wisdom.
Miss Bluebird had driven the bus on my first day of middle-school. She was my first great bus driver and my last. For her, prepubescent and adolescent misbehavior was not so much punished as discouraged. "Please sit down" attended where a hasty "stop leaning out of the window or you'll die " would, perhaps, have been safer and more appropriate. The proverbial "more like guidelines than actual rules" may best describe her attitude. But we did not love Miss Bluebird because she let us stretch the rules. We loved her because she treated us like adults until we started acting like children. We were always safe. But of infinitely greater importance, we were always human. She knew about our candy fetish, and she knew it was technically against the rules. But she also knew that it was a stupid rule, and sometimes "the man" as such deserves a malevolent smile filled with chocolaty teeth. In the years she drove the bus, we traveled in a kind of mobile yellow utopia. I only wish we had known then, the year before her retirement, what we had.
Then came Miss Shewbird. It was not, I expect, an accident of fate that her name so closely resembled that of Miss Bluebird's. I cannot pinpoint which evil angel determined that such a close association exist between the two bus drivers, but I can say without question that it was a demon. Miss Shewbird was a noxious woman with a gaunt expression and a bad temper. She quickly eradicated all candy privileges, assigned seats, and permitted little else besides a whisper. Where once we had a candy stash in the back seat, like a Kangaroo pouch, we now had duct tape. Where once we were walked freely too and fro, we now sat still, alone, and bored. Where once mutual respect flowed like the milk and honey of Canaan, despair and dread consumed our hearts. She had established an Empire, and we were at her mercy.
Then came the Tootsie Roll rebellion. The passengers of bus # 8 had had enough of her disrespect and power-mongering. Usurpation lay on the brain, and we waited for our leader to determine our future course of action. Thus, through the very whispers authorized by Miss Shewbird, John Heaton, our sovereign shepherded, planned mutiny. Among other secrets, we still kept pockets of candy stored beneath the back two seats. Though it was scanty in comparison to the glory days, it was enough to hold a stockpile of Tootsie Rolls. There lie our arsenal and our hope. Each of us were appointed the task of chewing one piece of Tootsie and handing it to John for the construction of a brown, sugary missile. At each motion of the jaw a rush of nostalgia filled our minds. We remembered Miss Bluebird, and we remembered that we were free. We could scarcely sit still, and Shewbird, that infernal wench of a woman, could sense that something was up. She peered and scowled; she threatened detention. It was all to no avail. We turned a deaf ear. The missile was complete, and we all awaited--though not long.
Immediately after its completion the moment appeared as if summoned by the angel Gabriel himself. It seems where an evil angel provided an association in name, that good angel provided an association of color. As we turned the infamous bend aptly named “death corner,” a brown UPS truck approached at a rapid speed. John saw the brown of the tootsie and the brown of the UPS truck as sign as if from God, wrenched his arm back, shouted his maledictions, and hurled the missile at the truck. In less than a moment, BANG! SCREETCH! SHOUTING! Shewbird slammed on the brakes in horror. The missile had struck the inside of the UPS truck where no door exists, flying directly past the driver’s head. It sounded like gunfire.
Riotous laughter ensued. Shewbird whirled around in her chair horrified, wanting to point and accusatory finger. But it was all to no avail. We were silent. Our shepherd had stuck it to the man, and we were silent as lambs.
Thankfully, no one was hurt. I cannot remember the after-events nor the ensuing punishment. But it matters as little now as it did then. We had remembered who we were, and forever altered the course of Shewbird’s attitude. We had, as it were, effectively altered the bus-route. Just deserts with a just dessert, you might say. She never again crossed us for fear of what we might do. In fact, I remember her some years later smiling at me in a lunch line, recollecting the good ol’ days when I sat in the 3rd seat from the back, waiting for my turn to move to the Senior row.
